Mapping Coastal Habitats in Wales

Many areas across Europe are mapped and monitored using a large range of different data types, sources and classification schemes leading to gaps in the knowledge required to fulfill the European Council’s Habitats Directive (1992). The Earth Observation Data for Habitat Monitoring (EODHaM) system, developed during the EU FP7 BioSOS project, introduces a systematic, hierarchical approach that is applicable to all sites and available as a standard, providing classifications of high value for conservation and biodiversity purposes (Lucas et al. Int J Appl Earth Observ Geoinf 37:17–28, 2015). The system is built on the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) developed by the FAO for use in the field. The aim of this project is to generate accurate maps of the location, extent and condition of coastal Annex I habitats at Kenfig Burrows Special Area of Conservation (SAC), using VHR Worldview-2 data.